Growing up in a Persian household is bound with phenomenal cuisine on a daily base. My love for all the rich spices, particularly saffron, led me to what I do today. Every dish has a story and a memory to relive when you take that first bite. When I think of butter I go back to my teenage years, visiting mighty Tehran and tasting my Grandmother’s dishes everyday. Just to give you an idea of how serious we are about butter: we even stir in lumps of butter in a bowl of rice, just to make 100% sure that ‘it isn’t dry’. Then again, doesn’t butter turn any dish into a foodie spectacle. 🙂 Well, you can imagine how the Persian boy in me was jumping up and down when Lurpak asked me to share my ultimate good-food moment on the blog!
So obviously I have dozens of good-food moments..I mean, it’s literally my job to share those with you guys here. Nevertheless, a true good-food moment comes to life when I collect all my favorite ingredients and get to play around a bit, creating a recipe that pays tribute to the tasting pallet that I grew up with. Each dish that I develop this way is therefore an eternal tribute to all dishes that my mother, aunt and grandmothers cooked for me. A little bit of my Persian roots and my favorite products led to this good-food moment. The result: oven-baked, saffron buttered codfish on a bed of seasoned sweet potato mash and a butter-glazed fennel salad. Brutally divine! 🙂
Yes, a lot of butter was used in this recipe. Then again, why not? 🙂 No but honestly, it’s lifts this recipe into a next level dish that you simply need to eat. Why Lurpak butter? It’s by far the softest, creamiest, and brutally freshest butter that I’ve ever tasted. I haven’t tried their unsalted butter before, but a scoop of their salted butter on a loaf of fresh bread is what defines a Saturday morning for me. 🙂
WIN A TRIP TO DENMARK! (Dutch audience only)
I hereby challenge you to share your ultimate Lurpak good-food butter moment. Why? Well, you can actually win a trip to fabulous Denmark! Here’s a step by step to-do list to join this supereasy, yet highly awesome competition:
- Buy a stick of Lurpak salted butter.
- Make a picture that clearly shows both your good-food moment and the Lurpak salted butter.
- Share the picture on Facebook or Instagram and use #roomboter and #lurpak.
- That’s it
Looking forward to see all your good-food moments online!!
Here’s the recipe:
BUY:
- Codfish (filet, 2pc)
- Serving 2
- Chard (a handfull)
- Cherry tomatoes (a handfull)
- Garlic (1 clove)
- 1/2 lime
- 1 red onion
- 1/2 cucumber
- 1 fennel
- 2 sweet potatoes (medium sized)
- Lurpak salted butter
- Provincial herbs
- Paprika powder
- Turmeric
- Saffron
DO:
- Start with cooking the cubed sweet potatoes over medium heat until soft.
- While the sweet potatoes are cooking away, thinly slice the fennel and season with salt and pepper. Melt some Lurpak salted butter (as much as your wish - I used about 10/15gr) in a frying pan and sauté the sliced fennel and minced garlic until soft. Set aside to cool.
- Chop up cucumber into small cubes and slice cherry tomatoes into thin slices. Peel and thinly slice the red onion. Mix all vegetables with the cooled fennel/garlic, sprinkle some olive oil and lime, stir well and set aside.
- Add 2 teaspoons of provincial herbs to the cooked (and drained!) sweet potatoes together with some Lurpak salted butter (about 10/15gr). Stir well into a coarse mash. Set aside to cool.
- Season the codfish filets with some turmeric, paprika powder, salt and pepper. About a teaspoon should be sufficient, though you are free to use as much as you wish.
- Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees (Celcius). Either create a small oven dish with aluminum foil (I like to do that 🙂 ) or use a small baking tray. Place the fish and a string of tomatoes onto the tray. Add some small cubed of Lurpak salted butter on top of the fish. Add a dash of (stewing) water onto the dish as well.
- Sprinkle some Persian saffron (go to your local Middle-Eastern store for this) over the fish and butter, place in your pre-heated oven and bake for about 12-15 minutes. Keep in mind not to overcook the codfish by keeping it in the oven too long!
- Serve the codfish on a bed of sweet potato mash and somme fresh chard. Serve the sautéed fennel salad as a side dish.
- Bon Appétit!
